On the edge of the UC Davis campus sits a world-renowned facility charged with ensuring grapevines, strawberries, fruit and nut trees, sweet potatoes, olives, pistachio, and roses are tested for viruses and pathogens. 

Silver Oak Cellars, a family-run business known for its cabernet sauvignon and pinot noir wines, donated $100,000 to the University of California, Davis, to support research on how characteristics like soil chemistry and location affect wines that we enjoy and attribute to specific places, including but not limited to Napa Valley. 

The money will help fund Department of Viticulture and Enology research to better understand how the same grapes planted in different locations can result in wines that have distinctive flavor, texture and other sensory attributes. 

Deborah Golino, renowned plant pathologist, avid gardener and retired director of Foundation Plant Services, or FPS, at University of California, Davis, died Dec. 23.

Golino was a powerhouse, a kind friend and mentor who had a knack for seeing the big picture and making her vision happen. She was approachable yet formidable, known for her epic parties and willingness to help others.

She was 70 and will be dearly missed.

With California enduring record-breaking rain and snow and Gov. Gavin Newsom recently easing restrictions on groundwater recharge, interest in “managed aquifer recharge” has never been higher. This process – by which floodwater is routed to sites such as farm fields so that it percolates into the aquifer – holds great promise as a tool to replenish depleted groundwater stores across the state.

UC Davis researchers are providing more insight into how grape skins and seeds, which usually go to waste during the making of chardonnay wine, may be a valuable and healthful ingredient in new food products.

A review paper published by the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry outlines how chardonnay marc can serve as a model for developing plant-based natural product food ingredients, and perhaps make upcycling agricultural byproducts relevant to other post-harvest processing scenarios.

Exposing wine grapes to sunlight was the key to making a good quality cabernet. But even the toughest grapes may not withstand the extreme heat that comes with climate change. Too much heat, like California has experienced with recent heat waves, can lead to jarringly jam-like wines that are high in alcohol and sugar and lacking in acidity.

A new, $5.25 million greenhouse is being built on the University of California, Davis, campus to safeguard an important grapevine collection from red blotch disease and other pathogens.  

The 14,400-square-foot greenhouse will have a vestibuled entry, be insect-proof and provide another level of disease protection. It is being spearheaded by Foundation Plant Services, or FPS, which provides the U.S. grape industry with high-quality, virus-tested grapevine plant material. 

Scientists at the University of California, Davis, have identified new root traits that help grapevines resist drought.

The findings, published in the journal Annals of Botany, could speed up the development of grape rootstocks that protect vines from dry conditions, helping the grape and wine industry adapt to climate change.

That’s what UC Irvine evolutionary biologist Brandon Gaut and UC Davis plant biologist Dario Cantu discovered in a study recently published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences.